Dani Kouyaté (born June 4, 1961)[1] is a film director and jeli (griot) from Burkina Faso, which the BBC describes as "Africa's most important film-making country".

[3][4] He is the son of one of the first Burkinabé actors, Sotigui Kouyaté,[2] and is a member of the Mandinka ethnic group.

[5] The junior Kouyaté trained at the Institute Africain d'Education Cinématographique in Burkina Faso's capital of Ouagadougou before travelling to France for five years of study at the Sorbonne where he obtained a Master's degree in Cultural and Social Marketing.

[5] In a 1995 interview, he reflected on the experience and commenting on traditional society, saying: Sometimes when you don't know where you're heading, you have to return to where you came from in order to think things over before continuing your journey.

[8]In 1999 he created several episodes of the Burkinabé television series À nous la vie (roughly "Let's grab life").

[1] The second feature film Kouyaté directed was Sia, le rêve du python, released in 2001.